There was a time when Peruvian restaurants were simple places - a few basic tables, tri-fold paper menus, servers in T-shirts who spoke limited English.

Then something happened. It was like Southwest Florida hit its simple-Peruvian tipping point. New names joined the mix — Inca’s Kitchen in Naples, Fort Myers’ El Gaucho Inca — and in doing so they refined the Peruvian style, adding lengthy wine lists and modern décor, setting the bar ever higher for those that followed.

Aji Limon is the perfect example of this Peruvian trend. Its original location opened in 2010 in a strip mall on Pine Island Road in Cape Coral. Back then you ordered at the counter and waited for juicy slabs of rotisserie chicken or Chinese-style fried rice brimming with seafood to eventually reach your table.

But in a short five years Aji Limon has evolved.

The restaurant opened a second location in January, this one in southern Cape Coral at the corner of SE 47th Street and Coronado Parkway. It sits just a stone’s-throw away from Cork Soakers and Nevermind and Ciao, some of the area’s most buzzed-about restaurants. And after a few meals, I can say Aji Limon is worth some buzz of its own.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

To understand Aji Limon you must understand the foods of Peru, a country where disparate cultures have collided for the last 500 years, leaving in their wake a tasty trail of mash-up dishes.

The chaufa, Peruvian fried rice, and lomo saltado, Peruvian stir fry, are nods to the Asian slave laborers who worked the country’s sugar plantations in the 1800s. Aji’s so-called green spaghetti, or tallarin verde, hints at the Italians who settled in Lima in the 16th century. They followed Peru’s Spanish colonizers who contributed paella and a serious love of seafood to this party.

But why not start with something completely unique to Peru?

Like an icy glass of chichi morada, a drink made of purple corn with hints of pineapple and cinnamon. Papa a la Huancaina could follow, the slices of softly boiled potatoes bathed in a creamy pepper sauce that’s cool yet bright, rich yet faintly spicy.

There are fat tamales made from orange-yellow masa dough that’s steamed in banana leaves until pillowy. And bracing ceviches brimming with hunks of fish and curls of shrimp. The habit-forming marinade is called tiger’s milk in Peru. It’s spicy and tangy and purportedly, um, curative — if you know what I mean (wink-wink).

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Aji Limon is one of the area's only restaurants to serve anticuchos de corazon, or skewered beef hearts, on the everyday menu.(Photo: The News-Press file photo)

Aji Limon is one of the only places around serving beef-heart skewers, or anticuchos de corazon, on its everyday menu. But before you gag mockingly, hear me out. Think of heart as the muscle it is. This is a meat-lover’s organ, a lean and tender cut we should be eating more of, especially when basted in a puree of chilies and grilled over open flames, as it is here, to a sumptuous effect.

That green spaghetti is made from springy noodles tossed in fresh pesto and Parmesan. There is a lone papa a la Huancaina to the side of the noodles, a reminder they’re not exactly Italian. The lomo saltado is delicious, its perfect saltiness owed to a shot of soy sauce. And there is tacu tacu, a dish of rice and beans with roots in Africa.

That’s four continents in one meal. Five if you count the Cape Coral tap water next to your stem of inky Argentinean Malbec.

These worldly flavors converge in a dining room that is part wine showcase, part diner, part pastry counter flaunting boxes of flan and cheesecakes made with the South American super fruit known as lucuma. Tall granite tables line the left wall with simpler tables to the right. Servers are professional and gracious, but the food can take time.

Use that time to scan the wine wall for unique South American vintages, or to pore over this extensive menu with its many diverse options. Because once the food comes, you'll realize you’ll soon be back for more.

Tallarin verde, or green spaghetti, served with a grilled pork chop at Aji Limon's newest location in south Cape Coral.(Photo: Special to The News-Press)